(Closed) How to start the ‘I want a ring’ conversation?

I’ve been lurking for a while now, and finally decided that I need to post my own thoughts, worries and concerns. My Boyfriend or Best Friend and I have been together for 2 years and 4 months. We moved across the country together about a year into our relationship and have been living together ever since. We’ve talked about the fact that we want to be together forever. Weve talked about getting married and having children. He has said he would like to have a child before he turns 30 (4 years from now). We’ve had other friends become engaged in the last few years and I’m getting tired of (not so) patiently waiting for it to be my turn. We’ve never talked about rings or a wedding date, or really anything more than passing comments about getting married at all.

So Bees I would like your advice, how do I start a conversation about wanting to get the engagement and wedding process started? I feel awkward starting a conversation with “do you see us getting married someday? Oh by the way I want a ring.”

Hmm, really depends how comfortable you are with bringing topics up like this with your partner. I always knew with Fiance I could casually bring up engagements, as he never led me to believe he wasn’t for it.

I think after 2 years, living together and making big moves to be with each other completely justifies that talk to see where you are both heading.

I casually brought up, “So, when we getting married then?” approach. It’s not for everyone, but it made my Fiance laugh after the shocked pause. Official ice breaker moment really, haha.

Just say to him, that in a few years time you always thought that you would like to get married, and just ask whether he sees himself married in the future, just a heart to heart really of your hopes and wants out of life, I hope they match for you, with compromises of course 🙂

I bought it up by saying I wanted to talk about whether we were on the same page. Then we discussed expectations. We then discussed timelines.

I told him I didnt want to be living together forever without a solid commitment and he agreed that it was a stepping stone not a permanent thing. We had a couple more chats, and then I dropped it and just got comfortable waiting.

And that was in April 2010, I dropped it July-ish, he proposed December 2010.

He was continually telling (what I know now were) little white lies, to completely throw me off the trail, and at one point said “well its probably not going to be for at least another 2 years”, and even later I had a bit of a cry about that, and he said “If you want it to be a surprise you have to cut me some slack because this is seriously really getting hard” and that was when I got the hint, and I completely dropped it and let him do his thing.

I found out after he proposed he actually had already purchased the ring a month before this even happened. He was just waiting for our overseas trip at the end of the year 🙂

We had the “I think you’re the one I want to marry conversation” which consisted of me saying that and SO saying “yeah me too”. And then gradually hinted (massive hints, because he’s a man and needs them) by using the phrases “when we get engaged…” and “when we get married…”. It’s moved one to “when we have children together…” and “when we buy a house together…” (for me, marriage comes first and he knows that). Eventually it got to “I want to get married god damn it, when will you propose?” And he said “not until you graduate”. He knows I don’t want a long engagement, and he wants to make it special.

hmmm well there is no one way to talk about it, but I think the best way to start it is to warn him that you are going to bring up the conversation. I know it sounds strange but it will give him some time to process it.

I would just say “hey SO, I was hoping that we could talk about engagement, marriage, time frame things. Maybe we could go out to dinner tonight after work?” For me it’s a good idea because being in public means that the conversation stays level (aka: I can’t start crying) and he sorta HAS to respond and if you warn him then he can have some time to collect his thoughts

im a brutally honest kind of a girl and can be very blunt. he knows this about me lol. So for me i just simply said it in the most raw way. I said (almost word for word) “well we already know we want to get married, we talked about it. I am watching allll these people around me get engaged and it hurts every single time. I want to be officially engaged and I want a ring on this finger *holds up finger* so we need to start looking around for ideas and start talking about a definite time line.”. simple as that. but thats just me.

We talked about getting married before I moved in, because I didn’t want to move in if we weren’t headed in that direction. After a few months I brought up timing and the reasons why I didn’t want to wait too long before having kids. He was a little startled I wanted a year to plan a wedding – he assumed it’d be a lot shorter. It was a series of conversations rather than one big one. (The type where you interrupt yourself to talk about something else, or are driving and get where you are going so the conversation is paused, not the type where you are harassing one party constantly!) He was the one to pull up some ring sites and to start to ask me what I thought about various rings then.

i second everything the bee’s wrote above. However, I just wanted to throw in one word of caution due to the title and wording of your post. When talking to your SO, I would avoid the words “ring” and “wedding”. These are two buzz words that immediately flash $$$$ in a guy’s mind. I would lean towards talking about a timeframe for getting married. That way the conversation is about solidifying your relationship and forming a union and not about fancy jewelry and dresses….

1. Do you want a ring or an engagement? They are 2 different things. I know that you know that, but you need to think carefully about your word choice when having this discussion.

2. The discussion shouldn’t be about getting engaged, as though that is the be all and end all of things. Rather, you need to begin a series of discussions about life goals, 5 and 10 year plans, values, and core beliefs. He wants to have kids before he is 30. Okay, cool. Does he believe that marriage must come before kids? Do you? How much does he value marriage? Is it “the kiss of death,” “an honored institution,” or something in between? Are there certain financial goals that one or both of you would like to achieve by a certain point in time? If so, how would paying for a wedding impact those financial goals? Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Does he have a similar vision? Honestly, it’s an ongoing conversation, not one big/dramatig “talk”. Start the dialogue with an open ended, non-marriage question to get things started and ask follow-up questions as needed. When you are talking about such big stuff, marriage is a natural conversation, so don’t force it.

Thank you everyone for all of your thoughts, suggestions and comments! It’s very much appreciated! I used the word “ring” because in the past when my Boyfriend or Best Friend and I have talked about it we’ve always called it “the ring”, however in the type of conversation inward t to have you are most certainly right, “ring” is certainly the wrong word.

Also, making the conversation about our life together and a timeline seems so much less daunting and seems more appropriate for the kind of conversations we’ve already been having.

Agreed with everyting posted! My Fiance and I were talking about marriage and a family for months while I watched everyone get engaged around us who wasn’t already married with children. I hinted here and there jokingly “I’d like to be engaged” “Oh, Jane got engaged, isn’t that something?” because we’re very sarcastic and laughed it off. I didn’t realize how differently we were thinking about engagements for a while, he just assumed since we knew we were getting married ‘someday’ that it was enough (I always said no to wanting a ring first). Finally when talking about it one day I said ‘someday’ rather wistfully and he realized that when I said it that way it sounded like a pipe dream and not a definite thing, which opened the floodgates for a real conversation…he proposed the very next morning LOL. If being married before having children is important to you, you might want to mention that “I know you want to have children before you turn 30, but I don’t want to have children until after we’re married”. or something like that?

SO and I have been living together for over 3 years. I graduated from undergrad and now am stuck in professional school for another 4 years. Still, we have been together for 8 years total, and I felt it was realy the time to start talking about actually taking the next step (we both talk about “when we’re married…” or “when we get a house…” or “our kids won’t be like that…”, etc. pretty casually).

I basically started my discussion with how I felt, and just layed it out: I am going to be going through one of the most important and difficult times of my life in the next four years, and I need to know you will be there on the other side. I need a tangible committment. I told him I loved him and wanted to be with him forever. Turns out he feels the same way, just was worried about stressing me out during school with any of this stuff. I told him that the not knowing for 100% what our plans were for the future stresses me out more, because I know I need him. We had a good cry over it. This was back in Sept. I dropped it until a few weeks ago, and we talked again, and now have pretty much found the perfect ring. Just working out logistics now 🙂

I waited until he wanted me to move in with him. He asked me to do that after we were dating for about 7 months. I agreed, but said that in order to feel secure I need to know a timeline of how long we will live together before we get engaged. He told me 2 years at the most, that sounded good to me, and that also led to both of us being way more comfortable to bring up engagement/wedding/kids 🙂

I find that alcohol tends to bring the conversation out in me… But to seriously discuss it, my favorite tactic that doesn’t seem tooooo pushy is to mention it when you get news of someone else’s engagment or wedding or right after attending a wedding. I always ask “so when are we going to get married?” or something of the sort. I think it makes it less scary, because people he knows are doing it and they survived (although 90% of his friends are married now, so I’m not sure what his hold up is anymore!).

However, don’t take my advice too seriously, I’m still definitely waiting and have trouble figuring out when to talk about rings and actual tangible things without making him feel like I’m pressuring him (except, as I mentioned before, when drinking. Then it just spills out and I can’t help but ask about it!)